You Gotta do what you Gotta do
by Hirad Coldheart
Summary: A semi-reluctant bounty hunter tries to come to terms with his way of life, but his line of work results in a more than dangerous situation. M for language and future violence. R&R if you will, NOT The Lone Wanderer if you were wondering, heh.
1. Introduction

I haven't finished the game's storyline, so no spoilers, please.  
First fic in a long time, be kind, if you will.

-----

Springvale was quiet. Not that that was anything too surprising, but it was a small comfort for the solitary man, as he picked his way delicately through the rubble of his old house. He was slight of body, no older than thirty, but due to his many years traversing the Wasteland having taken their toll on him, he looked at least a decade older. He removed his helmet, revealing short-cropped brown hair, and an insignia tattooed on the back of his neck. Dual inverted scimitars, positioned to resemble a pair of scissors, inked forever on his body. There were only three other people in the world that understood the true meaning behind it.

A shame, then, that all three, him included, so desperately wanted to kill one another.

The tattoo was not so different from the twin swords that were strapped to his back, although the man preferred to use the pistol at his side first if he could. He wasn't a big fan of long range, forgoing any heavy weaponry for additional speed, allowing him to quickly close any sizeable distance before an opponent could use the gap to his advantage.

A quick glance around the oh-so-familiar Wasteland told him that he was definitely alone. Not even a solitary bloatfly entered his vision. An involuntary sigh of relief left his lips as he shifted a particularly large wooden crossbeam that had fallen from the destroyed roof.

Looking beneath it, he could see that it covered his old bed from when he was just a child.

A brief wave of nostalgia rolled across him at the sight of his former place of rest, memories of fire, blood, anguish, death, blotting out the good times that he knew existed. He forced the thoughts from his mind, saving the anger for a time when he could use it to aid his cause.

Some thoughts were generally best left alone, especially when it involved the deaths of loved ones.

He was surprised that the bed had held up over all these years, even more so that the mattress and sheets still remained on top of the metal frame. With a wry smile, he mused over how it was a surprise that the frame itself hadn't been scavenged already. With a final glance to check that he was definitely alone, he slid underneath the bed.

Crawling through an inch-thick layer of dust, he quickly spotted the mark he had carved into the wall underneath the bed seven years prior to his current visit. He now considered himself a little devoid of imagination at the time, as he remembered cutting the wood out with his knife. The twin scimitars in the pine wall gazed out at him, previously a symbol of power for him, now just a haunting reminder of the past.

A keen mind would have had had a hard time spotting the importance of the mark, but such a task is made a lot easier when you were the one who put it there in the first place. With another grim smile, the man punched the floorboard directly beneath the mark, and wasn't surprised when his hand kept going through the weak balsa wood replacement, shaped to resemble the sturdier planks beside it. Feeling about beneath, he quickly came across what he was looking for, and pulled the metal lunch box out of the recently created hole.

The man emerged from under the bed, coughing and wheezing due to the dust. He placed it on the soiled mattress, removing a small key from one of the many pockets inside his coat. Inserting it into the reinforced padlock, he gave it a quick turn and was relieved to hear the 'click' as the lock opened. Smiling at his fortune, he opened the box and checked to make sure that the important contents were still inside.

And then he slumped over beside it as the 10mm bullet passed straight through his unprotected head.

-----

Daelan looked over at the recently deceased man, his silenced pistol resting comfortable in his hand. He had to give credit to the guy, it hadn't been easy getting this close to his overly cautious target.

Then again, after having spent so long tracking him down, he wasn't going to fail at this late stage.

"Well, I suppose this is what you get when you try to fuck with the wrong people, my good man", he said to himself, as always trying to justify his actions. Stepping into the ruined room, for he had taken the shot from a gap in the dilapidated wall, Daelan stood up next to the man, lying face down on the bed, blood slowly seeping into the mattress, staining it further.

Daelan had taken considerable caution in making sure that his shot missed the tattoo on the back of his target's neck, and he bent down over the dead man, knife in hand. A quick cut, and the skin with the insignia emblazoned on it came away in his hand. He dried it off, and placed in a sealed bag. Lifting up the lunchbox, contents inside, he stepped out of the house, adjusted his hat, and strolled out into the Wasteland.

He took several steps forward, then paused. Turning round, he went back inside the house.

A few moments later, he emerged again, this time with a small, recently acquired leather square in his hand.

Morally, Daelan objected strongly to being a hitman, hardly believing that in this ruined world, people still wanted others dead.

Fiscally though, he needed the caps.


	2. Taking a Break

To be honest, the next three chapters in this story could have been one, but I decided that I wanted to get something out, as it was better than nothing.

For the record, no, I don't smoke, ^_-

-----

Daelan looked up at the statue at the Anchorage Memorial site, sitting on a recently deceased Mirelurk, a customary line of smoke snaking up into the sky as his cigarette burned away. He removed it from his mouth and studied it carefully. A good make, he mused, custom-rolled for him, actually. One of the few people Daelan trusted had made them. Designed for extra longevity, he frowned when he checked how many he had left.

Had it really been that long since he'd been to Fort Independence? Brief flashes of the Outcast stockade sprang into his mind. He made a mental note to check in there when he got a chance. Preferably soon, for Terry, who he went way back with, rolled 'em thick, and he rolled 'em well. A laugh escaped from his lips when he realised that he considered two years 'way back'.

Such was his life. Proper friends were few and far between for Daelan, but then due to the nature of his work, he wasn't exactly the most trusting of people. He thought of Terry for a brief moment, and how the Outcast had made this particular batch of cigarettes with a special ingredient, one that deterred any insects in the nearby area. They were a special gift to the hitman after he had saved Terry's life from a treacherous Paladin with a grudge. Another chuckle. That had been quite the escapade, and he hadn't even been paid to do it!

Daelan valued greatly the repellent in the cigarettes. They kept the biting bugs at bay quite effectively. Not that he fancied his chances of one of them repulsing a Radscorpion, but then he had another implement that would do that.

Coincidentally, it also smoked when he used it.

A glance to the south reminded him of why he was this close to the ruined city that was Washington DC. His employer was in Rivet City, no doubt getting drunk off of his ass in the Muddy Rudder, waiting for his lackey to return.

His employer also had the twin scimitar tattoo on the back of his neck, and when Daelan considered the vast difference between the two people he'd seen with it, it was hard to draw any sort of resemblance. His target had been wary, intelligent and skilful, and it had only been Dalean's vast knowledge of the art of killing that had made it seem so simple. A lesser hitman would never have succeeded.

When contrasted with the overweight (quite an achievement given the climate of the world), brash drunkard that was going to pay him handsomely for this job, Daelan could only assume that the connection was purely coincidental, and had nothing to do with the individual talent of the person.

It was a very rare occurrence that Daelan liked one of his employers, and this was no exception. After all, these people wanted someone else dead, at a time where the human race needed to rebuild, to work together and recover some form of order in this post-apocalyptic wasteland.

He considered those pacifist words. Pacifist indeed, for a contract killer, he mused.

"You gotta do what you gotta do" he said resignedly, that little mantra that kept him going. After all, he couldn't help rebuild the world if he was dead or broke, right? Rising to his feet, he checked his gear for the upcoming journey. Those Mirelurks had just jumped him from the shoreline, and he'd been lucky that it had only been a couple. One more reason to add to the list as to why he _hated_ Rivet City

He wondered how anyone had managed to get there in the first place, because you had to be prepared to fork out a constantly rising amount of caps for a boat, well, to be more correct, a decaying rust bucket that was more than likely going to break down halfway across the water.

So, if you were poor, or just really liked radiation poisoning, you were forced to swim several leagues to get there, and if he was truly honest with himself, Daelan wasn't exactly ecstatic about running the risk of arriving there with either more or less limbs than he had started out with.

As always, a thought like that caused his mind to consider the possibilities. Even if possessing a third arm could help in a gunfight, or give him the upper hand in a bar brawl, Daelan wasn't too hopeful about what it would do to his chances with the opposite sex. After all, though it might be unnecessary, one of the ways he got some enjoyment out of his job was to seduce a female target. No, a third arm definitely wasn't the way to go. A lengthened tongue, however…

Not worth the risk, he decided eventually, declaring that he was dashing enough as it was, and if he possessed any more charm, it would just elicit a possibly dangerous amount of jealousy.

"Modest, too, huh?" He spoke aloud, before chuckling. Who better to accompany you than yourself? It led to some intelligent conversation, at least.

The other option, naturally, was to go through D.C. It doesn't take more than a glance at the ruined city to understand why that was a bad idea. Still, the lesser of two evils, providing you were capable of taking care of yourself, anyway.

Still, It was less of a hellish ordeal than it had been, courtesy of the Brotherhood of Steel. Those Metalheads had finally defeated the Super Mutants in the capital. Lyons had been particularly boastful about that achievement, although a couple of Outcasts that Daelan had talked to (admittedly before his contract had forced him to killed them, but he'd decided that that was irrelevant) had been less than respectful, saying that if the Elder hadn't have gone soft, the city would have been cleared a long time previously. Even so, they believed that the Brotherhood couldn't have done it without the help of '101' anyway.

But, unless you were prepared to face the Ghouls in the metro, you were stuck with navigating your way through a destroyed city that was still infested with Raiders and the odd Radscorpian.

Sighing, Daelan flipped the safety off on his pistol, put on his trademark tinted sunglasses, and ventured into the labyrinth of DC, reminding himself that the bounty was most definitely worth it.


End file.
